PROLOGUE
GIZA PLATEAU, EGYPT
AUGUST 1799
GÉNÉRAL NAPOLEON BONAPARTE DISMOUNTED FROM HIS HORSE and stared up at the pyramid. Two more lay in succession nearby, but this was the grandest of the three.
What a mighty prize his conquest had yielded.
The ride south yesterday from Cairo, through fields bordering muddy irrigation canals, and the quick trek across windblown sand, had been uneventful. Two hundred armed men had accompanied him, as it was foolhardy to venture this far out into Egypt alone. He’d left his contingent a mile away, camped for the night. The day had been another arid scorcher, and he’d intentionally waited until sunset before visiting.
He’d arrived ashore, near Alexandria, fifteen months ago with 34,000 men, 1,000 guns, 700 horses, and 100,000 rounds of ammunition. He’d quickly advanced south and taken the capital, Cairo, his aim being to disorganize any resistance through rapidity and surprise. Then he’d fought the Mamelukes not far from here, in a glorious conflict he’d dubbed the Battle of the Pyramids. Those former Turkish slaves had ruled Egypt for five hundred years, and what a sight—there had been thousands of warriors, dressed in colorful garb, mounted atop magnificent stallions. He could still smell the cordite, feel the roar of cannon, hear the snap of muskets, the screams of dying men. His troops, many veterans of the Italian campaign, had fought bravely. And while suffering only two hundred French dead, he’d captured virtually the entire enemy army, gaining total control of lower Egypt. One reporter had written that a handful of French subdued a quarter of the globe.
Not exactly true, but it sounded wonderful.
The Egyptians had dubbed him Sultan El Kebir—a title of respect, they’d said. During the past fourteen months, ruling this nation as commander in chief, he’d discovered that, as other men loved the sea, so he loved the desert. He also loved the Egyptian way of life, where possessions counted little and character much.
They also trusted providence.
As did he.
“Welcome, Général. Such a glorious evening for a visit,” Gaspard Monge called out in his usual cheerful tone.
Napoleon enjoyed the pugnacious geometer, an older Frenchman, son of a peddler, blessed with a wide face, deep-set eyes, and a fleshy nose. Though a learned man, Monge always toted a rifle and a flask and seemed to crave both revolution and battle. He was one of 160 scholars, scientists, and artists—savants, the press had labeled them—who had made the journey from France with him, since he’d come not only to conquer but to learn. His spiritual role model, Alexander the Great, had done the same when invading Persia. Monge had traveled with Napoleon before, in Italy, ultimately supervising the looting of that country, so he trusted him.
To a point.
“You know, Gaspard, as a child I wanted to study science. During the revolution, in Paris, I attended several lectures on chemistry. But alas, circumstances made me an army officer.”
One of the Egyptian workers led his horse away, but not before he grabbed a leather satchel. He and Monge now stood alone, luminous dust dancing in the shadow of the great pyramid.
“A few days ago,” he said, “I performed a calculation and determined that these three pyramids contain enough stone to build a wall a meter wide and three meters high around the whole of Paris.”
Monge seem to ponder his assertion. “That could well be true, Général.”
He smiled at the equivocation. “Spoken like a doubting mathematician.”
“Not at all. I just find it interesting how you view these edifices. Not in relation to the pharaohs, or the tombs they contain, or even the amazing engineering used to construct them. No. You view these only in terms related to France.”
“That is hard for me not to do. I think of little else.”
Since his departure, France had fallen into impossible disarray. Its once great fleet had been destroyed by the British, isolating him here in Egypt. The ruling Directory seemed intent on warring with every royalist nation, making enemies of Spain, Prussia, Austria, and Holland. Conflict, to them, seemed a way to prolong their power and replenish a dwindling national treasury.
Ridiculous.
The Republic was an utter failure.
One of the few European newspapers that had made its way across the Mediterranean predicted it was only a matter of time before another Louis sat on the French throne.
He had to return home.
Everything he cherished seemed to be crumbling.
“France needs you,” Monge said.
“Now you speak like a true revolutionary.”
His friend laughed. “Which you know I am.”
Seven years ago Napoleon had watched as other revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace and dethroned Louis XVI. He’d then faithfully served the new Republic and fought at Toulon, afterward promoted to brigadier general, then to Général of the Eastern Army, and finally commander in Italy. From there he’d marched north and taken Austria, returning to Paris a national hero. Now, barely thirty, as Général of the Army of the Orient, he’d conquered Egypt.
But his destiny was to rule France.
“What a superfluity of wonderful things,” he said, admiring again the great pyramids.
During the ride from his camp he’d spied workers busy clearing sand from a half-buried sphinx. He’d personally ordered the excavation of the austere guardian, and was pleased with the progress.
“This pyramid is closest to Cairo, so we call it the First,” Monge said. He pointed at another. “The Second. The farthest is the Third. If we could but read the hieroglyphs, we could perhaps know their true labels.”
He agreed. No one could understand the strange signs that appeared on nearly every one of the ancient monuments. He’d ordered them copied, so many drawings that his artists had expended all of the pencils brought from France. It had been Monge who devised an ingenious way to melt lead bullets into Nile reeds and fashion more.
“There may be hope there,” he said.
And he caught Monge’s knowing nod.
They both knew that an ugly black stone found at Rosetta, inscribed with three different scripts—hieroglyphs, the language of ancient Egypt, demotic, the language of current Egypt, and Greek—might prove the answer. Last month he’d attended a session of his Institut Egypt, created by him to encourage his savants, where the discovery had been announced.
But much more study was needed.
“We are making the first systematic surveys of these sites,” Monge said. “All who came before us simply looted. We shall memorialize what we find.”
Another revolutionary idea, Napoleon thought. Fitting for Monge.
“Take me inside,” he ordered.
His friend led him up a ladder on the north face, to a platform twenty meters high. He’d come this far once before, months ago, with some of his commanders, when they’d first inspected the pyramids. But he’d refused to enter the edifice since it would have required him to crawl on all fours before his subordinates. Now he bent down and wiggled into a corridor no more than a meter high and equally as wide, which descended at a mild gradient through the pyramid’s core. The leather satchel swung from his neck. They came to another corridor hewn upward, which Monge entered. The gradient now climbed, heading toward a lighted square at the far end.
They emerged and were able to stand, the wondrous site filling him with reverence. In the flickering glow of oil lamps he spied a ceiling that rose nearly ten meters. The floor steeply planed upward through more granite masonry. Walls projected outward in a series of cantilevers that built on each other to form a narrow vault.
“It is magnificent,” he whispered.
“We’ve started calling it the Grand Gallery.”
“An appropriate label.”
At the foot of each sidewall a flat-topped ramp, half a meter wide, extended the length of the gallery. A passage measuring another meter ran between the ramps. No steps, just a steep incline.
“Is he up there?” he asked Monge.
“Oui, Général. He arrived an hour ago and I led him to the King’s Chamber.”
He still clung to the satchel. “Wait outside, below.”
Monge turned to leave, then stopped. “Are you sure you wish to do this alone?”
He kept his eyes locked ahead on the Grand Gallery. He’d listened to the Egyptian tales. Supposedly, through the mystic passageways of this pyramid had passed the illuminati of antiquity, individuals who’d entered as men and emerged as gods. This was a place of “second birth,” a “womb of mysteries,” it was said. Wisdom dwelled here, as God dwelled in the hearts of men. His savants wondered what fundamental urge had inspired this Herculean engineering labor, but for him there could be but one explanation—and he understood the obsession—the desire to exchange the narrowness of human mortality for the breadth of enlightenment. His scientists liked to postulate how this may be the most perfect building in the world, the original Noah’s Ark, maybe the origin of languages, alphabets, weights, and measures.
Not to him.
This was a gateway to the eternal.
“It is only I who can do this,” he finally muttered.
Monge left.
He swiped grit from his uniform and strode ahead, climbing the steep grade. He estimated its length at about 120 meters and he was winded when he reached the top. A high step led into a low-ceilinged gallery that flowed into an antechamber, three walls of which were cut granite.
The King’s Chamber opened beyond, more walls of polished red stone, the mammoth blocks fitted so close only a hairbreadth remained between them. The chamber was a rectangle, about half as wide as long, hollowed from the pyramid’s heart. Monge had told him that there may well be a relationship between the measurements of this chamber and some time-honored mathematical constants.
He did not doubt the observation.
Flat slabs of granite formed a ceiling ten meters above. Light seeped in from two shafts that pierced the pyramid from the north and the south. The room was empty save for a man and a rough, unfinished granite sarcophagus without a lid. Monge had mentioned how the tubular drill and saw marks from the ancient workmen could still be seen on it. And he was right. He’d also reported that its width was less than a centimeter greater than the width of the ascending corridor, which meant it had been placed here before the rest of the pyramid was built.
The man, facing the far wall, turned.
His shapeless body was draped in a loose surtout, his head wrapped in a wool turban, a length of calico across one shoulder. His Egyptian ancestry was evident, but remnants of other cultures remained in a flat forehead, high cheekbones, and broad nose.
Napoleon stared at the deeply lined face.
“Did you bring the oracle?” the man asked him.
He motioned to the leather satchel. “I have it.”
Napoleon emerged from the pyramid. He’d been inside for nearly an hour and darkness had now swallowed the Giza plain. He’d told the Egyptian to wait inside before leaving.
He swiped more dust from his uniform and straightened the leather satchel across his shoulder. He found the ladder and fought to control his emotions, but the past hour had been horrific.
Monge waited on the ground, alone, holding the reins of Napoleon’s horse.
“Was your visit satisfactory, mon Général?”
He faced his savant. “Hear me, Gaspard. Never speak of this night again. Do you understand me? No one is to know I came here.”
His friend seemed taken aback by his tone.
“I meant no offense—”
He held up a hand. “Never speak of it again. Do you understand me?”
The mathematician nodded, but he caught Monge’s gaze as he glanced past him, upward, to the top of the ladder, at the Egyptian, waiting for Napoleon to leave.
“Shoot him,” he whispered to Monge.
He caught the shock on his friend’s face, so he pressed his mouth close to the academician’s ear. “You love to tote that gun. You want to be a soldier. Then it is time. Soldiers obey their commander. I don’t want him leaving this place. If you don’t have the guts, then have it done. But know this. If that man is alive tomorrow, our glorious mission on behalf of the exalted Republic will suffer the tragic loss of a mathematician.”
He saw the fear in Monge’s eyes.
“You and I have done much together,” Napoleon made clear. “We are indeed friends. Brothers of the so-called Republic. But you do not want to disobey me. Not ever.”
He released his grip and mounted the horse.
“I am going home, Gaspard. To France. To my destiny. May you find yours, as well, here, in this godforsaken place.”
ONE
COPENHAGEN
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23, THE PRESENT
12:40 AM
THE BULLET TORE INTO COTTON MALONE’S LEFT SHOULDER.
He fought to ignore the pain and focused on the plaza. People rushed in all directions. Horns blared. Tires squealed. Marines guarding the nearby American embassy reacted to the chaos, but were too far away to help. Bodies were strewn about. How many? Eight? Ten? No. More. A young man and woman lay at contorted angles on a nearby patch of oily asphalt, the man’s eyes frozen open, alight with shock—the woman, facedown, gushing blood. Malone had spotted two gunmen and immediately shot them both, but never saw the third, who’d clipped him with a single round and was now trying to flee, using panicked bystanders for cover.
Dammit, the wound hurt. Fear struck his face like a wave of fire. His legs went limp as he fought to raise his right arm. The Beretta seemed to weigh tons, not ounces.
Pain jarred his senses. He sucked deep breaths of sulfur-laced air and finally forced his finger to work the trigger, which only squeaked, and did not fire.
Strange.
More squeaks could be heard as he tried to fire again.
Then the world dissolved to black.
Malone awoke, cleared the dream from his mind—one that had recurred many times over the past two years—and studied the bedside clock.
12:43 AM.
He was lying atop the bed in his apartment, the nightstand’s lamp still on from when he’d plopped down two hours ago.
Something had roused him. A sound. Part of the dream from Mexico City, yet not.
He heard it again.
Three squeaks in quick succession.
His building was 17th century, completely remodeled a few months ago. From the second to the third floor the new wooden risers now announced themselves in a precise order, like keys on a piano.
Which meant someone was there.
He reached beneath the bed and found the rucksack he always kept at the ready from his Magellan Billet days. Inside, his right hand gripped the Beretta, the same one from Mexico City, a round already chambered.
Another habit he was glad he hadn’t shucked.
He crept from the bedroom.
His fourth-floor apartment was less than a thousand square feet. Besides the bedroom, there was a den, kitchen, bath, and several closets. Lights burned in the den, where a doorway opened to the stairway. His bookshop consumed the ground floor, and the second and third floors were used exclusively for storage and work space.
He found the doorway and hugged the inner jamb.
No sound had revealed his advance, as he’d kept his steps light and his shoes to the carpet runners. He still wore his clothes from yesterday. He’d worked late last night after a busy Saturday before Christmas. It was good to be a bookseller again. That was supposedly his profession now. So why was he holding a gun in the middle of the night, every one of his senses telling him danger was nearby?
He risked a glance through the doorway. Stairs led to a landing, then angled downward. He’d switched off the lights earlier before climbing up for the night, and there were no three-way switches. He cursed himself for not including some during the remodeling. One thing that had been added was a metal banister lining the stair’s outer edge.